


Hangman

by songwithnosoul



Category: Girl Genius
Genre: Gen, Non-lethal hanging
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-13
Updated: 2016-01-13
Packaged: 2018-05-13 18:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,316
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5712523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/songwithnosoul/pseuds/songwithnosoul
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>"You caught them by playing</em> hangman<em>?"</em></p>
<p>They were drunk, to begin with...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hangman

Zumzum had been a complete waste of time.

The three of them had been sent into the town by Jenka based on a report of a kid that resembled Master Bill. With only three Jägers, there was no possibility of securing the town and inspecting the townspeople properly, so they had to do it the sneaky (slow, inefficient) way. By the time Maxim managed to locate the kid they’d already been canvassing the town for hours, and of course the boy wasn’t a Heterodyne: one discreet sniff as he ran past, too deep in a game with his friends to notice he was being spied on, confirmed it. He didn’t really even look like Master Bill, either: his face was shaped differently and his hair was several shades too dark. He really hadn’t expected to find a Heterodyne, but after fourteen years of this Dimo was so bitterly disappointed that he had to wrestle down the urge to light the damn town on fire on his way out.

And then Oggie had run off without so much as a word, forcing Maxim and Dimo to hunt him down. It wasn’t that hard: Oggie’s scent was easy enough to follow and the sun was starting to set, sending the humans drifting indoors and casting long shadows to hide in, but that didn’t count for much. Dimo just wanted to report back to Jenka and leave, and he was in just the mood to drag Oggie back to her by the horn if need be. Oggie, it turned out, was hiding in a cellar just a few blocks away, and even before they climbed down to join him Dimo could guess from the smell why he was there.

Oggie was lounging on the cellar’s dirt floor, wine bottle in hand and several more piled at his side, obviously taken from the racks lining the walls. He waved the bottle cheerily at them as they entered; judging by the hollow sloshing sound it made, it was at least half-empty. Dimo crossed his arms and glared.

“Ognian, vot der _dumboozle_ iz dis about?” he growled in an undertone, listening with one ear for movement overhead.

Oggie was completely unabashed. “Hy schmelled dis vhen ve vas lookink for dot fake Heterodyne keed. Hy thought mebbe ve could haff a leetle bit of fun before ve leaves?”

“Until dey calls de guards on us!”

“Naw. Iz a store on top of de cellar, de pipple lives on top of _dot_. Dey von’t hear us onless ve starts breaking tings.”

Maxim moved from behind Dimo, scowling. “Dey _used_ to hide deir valuables much better den dis. Must be goink soft since ve schtopped raiding dem.” He looked thoughtfully at the wine bottles, like he was thinking that they needed a reminder.

Dimo was eyeing the bottles, too. Alcohol could be very difficult to find when you were travelling through the Wastelands... He tried one more time. “Jenka said—”

“She said ve haff tree days,” Oggie cut in, sloshing his wine bottle again. “Ve haff time.”

Technically, that was true, but Jenka was also clear that she expected them to finish the mission as quickly as possible – and without leaving evidence that they had been there. If they actually took the three days, they had better either have found a Heterodyne, or be dead.

“Ve ken take her some vine, too!” Maxim added. He and Oggie were both eyeing Dimo hopefully.

Dimo sighed and snatched the bottle from Oggie, who grinned and picked another one from the floor. “Hokay, fine. But chust for a few hours, den ve really gots to leave.” He took a swig, and it was even better than he had anticipated. He could already feel himself starting to loosen up.

* * *

It was early in the morning when they finally left the wine cellar. It was a difficult parting, but they really did have to get out of town before the sun came up. Besides, they had ended up drinking Jenka’s peace offering and, after some debate, had decided that if she was going to set Füst on them again they would rather face it drunk than hungover. Actually leaving the wine cellar turned out to be surprisingly difficult, as navigating Oggie’s halberd out of the building without breaking everything had suddenly become a three-Jäger job. Dimo exited first, carefully walking backwards up the steps so he could direct Oggie’s progress. He did remember to check that the street was clear before fully opening the door (looking and listening but not sniffing because everything still smelled like booze) but he still only got two (still backwards) steps out into the street before he walked into someone.

Automatically Dimo dug in with the claws of one hand while slashing with the other – except that the body he’d felt suddenly wasn’t there anymore. He spun on the spot and fumbled a knife from its sheath – yes, there, a shadow moved! – and threw, and… nothing. He crept closer, keeping to the deep shadows, but there was nothing there, not even his knife. He hadn’t even heard it hit. Dimo started to wonder if some of the stuff he’d drank was Spark-made and he hadn’t noticed.

Then Oggie came up from the cellar, announced by the loud scrape of his halberd on the doorframe, Maxim still in position a few steps behind him. They fanned out in front of the door and stared at him. Oggie frowned in a confused sort of concern. “Hyu okay?”

“Hy thought—” Dimo started, then the shape dropped into the street between them.

Oggie and Maxim weren’t quite in sync, Maxim a little slow drawing his sword; but their strikes were close enough to simultaneous and they spread out so they weren’t in each other’s way, and the figure just ducked and sidestepped the blades like he was avoiding a closing door. Then he turned so he was facing all three Jägers and, catching Dimo mid-throw, held his hands up in submission.

“Peace!” the man boomed, loud enough to make Dimo flinch. He was either human or a convincingly human-looking construct, and a large one at that, broad-shouldered and obviously strong, with pale skin, long white hair and his eyes covered in a mechanical visor. He was holding Dimo’s missing throwing knife in one of his hands.

Dimo glanced past the man to his brothers. They were both holding their weapons uncertainly and looked like they had lost track of what was happening. After a few seconds of nothing, the man slowly held out Dimo’s knife, handle-first. Dimo took it and, feeling vaguely ridiculous to be standing around with a knife in each hand but not fighting, sheathed the spare. He decided that he definitely wanted to know what this man was thinking before killing him.

“Good evening, gentlemen! Fancy seeing you here!” Apparently encouraged by the fact that he was still alive, he dropped his hands down to his hips. He spoke with some kind of Scandinavian accent that Dimo should have been able to identify and was now grinning cheerfully. Dimo felt like he needed to speak.

“Vot de _hell_ does hyu tink hyu is doink?”

“Oh, of course! I should introduce myself! I am Otto, and I’m a big fan!”

_Bullshit,_ Dimo thought, or maybe said out loud, or maybe it was just written all over his face; either way, the man started talking again quickly.

“What I mean to say is, I’m a big fan of the _Heterodyne Boys._ ” (Oh, one of _those_. Funny; they usually didn’t like Jägers either. Dimo was surprised to see that the man wasn’t wearing the Heterodyne trilobite as a symbol of his “allegiance”.) “Now, I’m assuming that you three don’t work for Baron Wulfenbach” – a little chuckle – “which means that you must be looking for a Heterodyne, correct?”

Oggie made a little hissing sound through his teeth, which was an understandable reaction. Their mission wasn’t the sort of secret that they’d have to kill this man just for knowing, but it wasn’t common knowledge either. There were any number of rumours about the detached Jägers circulating, usually along the lines that Wulfenbach had rejected them because they had developed a taste for human flesh, and humans tended to find those much more interesting than anything halfway reasonable. Dimo caught his companions’ eyes and shook his head.

“Since I’m here, I would like to help you on your noble quest! Normally I’d buy you a drink first, but, well…” He looked wryly between the three Jägers, one eyebrow slightly raised. (Maxim made an indignant huffing sound.)

“Ve vas chust headink for de gate,” Dimo said.

“Oh, I see. You…do know that the gates would all be closed at this time of night?” All _three_ of them were eyeing Dimo now. _(Shut up, you two didn’t think of it either.)_

“Ah…of cawrze Hy know! Ve vill chust go over de vall _by_ de gate!”

“And _I_ can help!” There was something mixing with the enthusiasm in the man’s voice now, something which made Dimo’s ears twitch. Was that Spark harmonics? _Huh._ “I could be a lookout, or a distraction…or I could join you! Yes! I’m an adventurer, you know; I could be a great help in your search!”

(For half a second the word “adventurer” twitched something in Dimo’s brain, but then he had a very unwanted vision of how Jenka would react if they returned to camp drunk and with this idiot human in tow.)

_“No.”_ That was all three Jägers. Then Maxim started in.

“Dis iz not some kind of _game_ or vun of doze cheap novels!” He jabbed his sword at the man for emphasis. “Ve Jägerkin haff been charged vith dis _sacred_ duty to hour Heterodynes, und—”

Dimo cut in before Maxim could really get going. “Dis iz someting ve gots to do hourselves.”

The Spark’s face fell but he shrugged. “Very well. I hope you’ll at least let me see you safely out of town.”

_Bodies are evidence,_ Dimo thought. He began to flip his knife through his fingers, slowly for effect and to hide his unsteadiness. “Fine. Hyu stay vhere ve ken see hyu.”

Otto turned out to be a surprisingly useful scout. As a human he could afford to be seen and so didn’t have to keep to the deep shadows (not that anybody at all was out in the streets anyway), he turned out to be quiet when he wasn’t talking, and he had no trouble walking in a straight line. Even when he looked around corners, he managed to keep a foot or a hand in sight. They made it to the town square that way and were halfway around it when Otto reached a corner and, rather than waving them on, froze. Dimo, Maxim and Oggie simultaneously threw themselves against the closest wall. (Their weapons clattered loudly against the stone, so they held their breaths and stood very still to compensate.) After a few seconds Otto unstuck himself and slunk over to where the Jägers were hiding.

“Vot iz it?” Dimo hissed.

“I just had a thought,” the Spark said. “There’s still hours before sunrise and I can’t buy you drinks, but I would like to do something. How about a little game before you go?”

“Vot _kind_ of game?” Dimo hadn’t meant to say that, but it was still an exciting question; games and alcohol went well together, particularly card games. And they did have time! Maxim and Oggie leaned in on either side of him.

“A _friendly_ game. No weapons.” (Oh well. What else could you expect from a human?) Then, before they could grab him, Otto stepped out into the town square and gestured for the Jägers to follow.

The town square was a wide-open expanse of flat land, partly cobbled and partly pasture. It was surrounded on all sides by storefronts and its only landmarks were a low, wall-less wooden pavilion, a short tower and a gallows, currently unoccupied. It was terribly exposed.

“De townspipple iz gunna see us!”

The man just spread his hands and stepped further into the area. “Oh, no need to worry about that! The town is under curfew at night; it’s apparently a local tradition that dates back hundreds of years to a time when the town was besieged by lunar porcupines.” To demonstrate his point, he strode across the green, in full view of anyone who cared to look, and leaned against the tower. Dimo tightened his grip on his knife but after a full minute passed and nothing happened Oggie slowly slunk out, keeping to the shadows, and after a few seconds Maxim and Dimo followed.

“Very good.” The man began striding towards them, explaining as he went. “Now, the game we’re going to play here is called ‘Hangman’…”

* * *

It turned out that the game was about spelling, of all things. If Dimo had known that ahead of time he would have made his excuses and left, but the man had piqued Maxim’s interest and then it was too late. Unlike many other Jägers Dimo _was_ literate, and he had found reading a surprisingly useful skill during his detachment, when every scrap of information could aid in his survival or search for the Heterodyne. On the other hand, it had probably been over fifty years since he’d been called upon to write something other than his name. While detached messages and orders were usually passed down orally to avoid leaving evidence, and the few times they’d had to write Maxim had taken care of it.

All this to say, Dimo had expected to lose. What he hadn’t expected was to lose to _Oggie._

“No fair!” Oggie whined. “Hyu must haff cheated! Dere’s no vay Hy spells better den hyu!” His voice was very close to Dimo’s ear because they were hanging side by side.

Dimo twisted around to look sideways, making his head twinge. Oggie was grinning from ear to ear, hat slightly askew. “How ken hyu cheat a brodder like dot? Hy _trusted_ hyu! Iz chust not fair…”

The rope pinched.

“Hyu okay up dere, brodders?” Maxim yelled from the ground.

Dimo sighed. “Yah yah, Hy’m fine,” he replied, only a little bit choked.

Oggie tried to nod and dislodged his hat, which began to slide off sideways. He yelped and hastily tipped his head, managing to catch the hat precariously against his horn. Dimo snorted and almost choked.

“Dun vorry!” Maxim called back up, assuming a triumphant pose. “Hy vill cut hyu down vhen Hy vins!”

Maxim had actually gotten a good education somewhere and was indecently proud of it. He claimed that his literacy made him officer material; maybe this was true, because he _had_ been an officer before being detached, but Dimo didn’t understand why he considered this a good thing.

“Don’t be so sure!” Otto proclaimed from where he stood to one side of the gallows. “You’re facing the three-time All-Norway Junior Spelling Bee Champion!”

“Ha! Hy vas spellink befaw hyu great-great-grandpapa vas born, keed! Hyu _ken’t_ vin!”

And then they were off, trading boasts and flinging long, complicated words at each other. The man still hadn’t demonstrated any sort of capability to speak quieter than a shout and his rowdiness was encouraging Maxim to be louder and more reckless to match. Dimo flattened down his ears as far as he could but it didn’t help much. He could feel a headache coming on. It wasn’t _fair_ ; he hadn’t even had time for the hangover to set in yet.

“Iz de townspipple deaf or vot?” he asked Oggie; he had to push himself to be audible between the argument and the noose.

“Mebbe dey’s afraid of us!” Oggie wheezed; the rope was jammed into his windpipe at an inconvenient angle because he was still balancing his hat on his horn.

Really, though, where were the townspeople? Some of the surrounding storefronts looked like they had apartments above them, and at least one of the wall guards should have been awake…

But then he realized that everything had gone quiet.

Snapping his gaze back to the two in the square in front of him, he could immediately tell that the competition had stopped being friendly some time while he wasn’t paying attention. Maxim was standing with one hand on the hilt of his sword, eyes narrowed and fangs just starting to show. Well, maybe this was about to get fun after all…

“Zo…” Maxim was standing less than a meter from Otto, but he took a step forward anyway. “ _Vot_ did hyu chust say?”

The Spark shrugged, but he at least had the sense to look wary. “I just said that “incultură” is spelled with an “ă”, not an “a”. But you really _were_ very close.”

“Hy _know_ how it’z schpelled, und it’z vit an “a”! _Hy_ tink hyu is cheatink!”

Sharply, the Spark’s hand went for his back pocket; Dimo nearly dislocated his shoulder reminding himself that his hands were tied, but this time Maxim was quicker on the draw. The Spark dodged without even looking and with one motion pulled a book from his pocket and flipped it open with a thumb. He smoothly pivoted around Maxim to stand behind him and reached around his shoulder to put the book in front of Maxim’s face. He didn’t once touch Maxim, but Maxim stumbled a little anyway.

“No, see, it’s right here. Look…” Maxim followed the man’s finger as it traced across the page, then snatched the book with both hands and bent over it like he was searching for fine print. After a couple of seconds the tension dropped off of his shoulders.

“Ho, zo it iz…” he muttered. Maxim half-glanced at the human who was still peering over his shoulder and then he was grinning and sheathing his weapon. (Dimo groaned.) Maxim then offered his sword hand for Otto to shake. “Sorry ‘bout dot. Vell, goot game, yah?”

“Excellent!” the Spark proclaimed as he shook. Then he clapped a hand on Maxim’s shoulder (the one without the spiked pauldron) and added, “And now it’s your turn.”

Maxim wasn’t a sore loser. He removed his scabbard from his belt and threw it in the pile with Oggie’s halberd and Dimo’s knives without having to be asked and he held his hair out of the way of the noose as it was thrown around his neck. Then Otto tied Maxim’s hands and hoisted him up with his brothers. Oggie seemed to be concentrating on hanging as still as possible, but Dimo made sure to catch Maxim’s eye with a smirk. As Maxim was being hanged, the knotted section of the rope came up and pushed the brim of his hat, making it slide down over his face. The way that Maxim wiggled and yelled for help _might_ have been less funny if Dimo was sober.

Then Otto came around from behind the gallows and gave Maxim’s leg a hard slap as he passed, and the hat fell off completely.

Even without firm grounding under his feet, Maxim’s kick would have cracked the man’s skull if it had connected. “HOY!” he snarled. “Dot’s _mine!_ Giff it beck!” He got no response.

Oggie began to look a little worried. “Uh… _vhen_ iz hyu gunna cut os down?”

The man chuckled but didn’t look back as he made his way across the stone part of the square to stand in front of the pavilion. Dimo tugged at the ropes around his wrists. _Damn_ , this guy actually knew how to tie knots…

Once he had assumed an appropriately dramatic stance, the Spark cupped his hands around his mouth and bellowed, “People of Zumzum! Your streets are safe once more!”

Dimo pulled harder, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Maxim and Oggie doing the same. _Damn_ , he couldn’t reach the ropes with his claws. And there was no slack, either. Hadn’t he remembered to tense against the ropes when his hands were being tied so there would be slack later? He had, hadn’t he?

“Dem dem dem dem dem dem dem dem dem dem dem…”

His brothers hadn’t been able to get themselves free, either. Oggie was now flailing around, trying to get his clawed feet up above his head, but he’d only managed to knock his hat the rest of the way off. As they struggled, the windows of the buildings bordering the square were starting to light up and humans were coming out, or else coming in from side streets, carrying lanterns, fully dressed, clumped together and walking like the ground was mined. In a few minutes the cobbled space between the gallows and the pavilion was filled.

The humans all stared, of course. Dimo forced himself to stop struggling until he could find a way to get free that had a chance of working. After he caught a couple dozen stares suggesting that he was a _mad_ , dangerous animal he realized that he was mumbling under his breath and stopped that too. Meanwhile, the Spark had been standing in the back and watching approvingly as the crowd filled the square up. When it started spilling over into and around the pavilion behind him and even behind the gallows, he pushed through the townspeople so he could stand in front of the gallows. Not within kicking range, though.

When he started attracting curious stares of his own, the Spark struck the exact shoulders-squared, fists-on-hips pose he had taken when introducing himself to Dimo and his brothers. “People of Zumzum! I, OTHAR TRYGGVASSEN, _Gentleman Adventurer!_ , have captured these wild Jägermonsters inside your town! Fear not, for they have been subdued and will never again harm you or your children!”

This worked to get the crowd’s attention. Suddenly, the townspeople felt brave enough to raise their voices, even cheer. (The sound rattled around in Dimo’s skull and made him wince.) They had clearly heard the stories about the “hero” Othar Tryggvassen. Dimo had also heard other stories, about a madboy who thought he was saving the world by killing every other Spark he saw. It was predictable that he considered detached Jägers fair game too.

He probably really _was_ a “Heterodyne Boys” fan.

Now that he’d made his speech, Tryggvassen waded back into the crowd and immediately picked up a group of orbiting admirers. As they drifted towards a tavern, another person ploughed through the crowd in front of them: a scarred, grim-faced wall guard carrying a musket. The guardsman went straight for Maxim and pointed the musket in his face. Maxim bent his legs and shifted his weight back, Oggie resumed trying to reach the noose with his feet and Dimo dug holes in his palms trying to cut the ropes at his wrists. Either the crowd had gone quiet or Dimo had just stopped paying them any attention.

“Wait! Stop!” The guardsman hesitated and turned his head without shifting his weapon, and Dimo spared the speaker a glance too. He was an old, gaudily-dressed man who carried himself like he thought he was the Baron Wulfenbach. The man put one hand on the gun and shoved it down towards the ground, which the guard took with a look of practiced patience.

“I was just taking care of these Jägers, sir.”

“There’s no need for that.”

“No need?”

The old man looked speculatively along the gallows. “I want to see how long it takes them to die.” The guardsman snorted but left; Oggie and Maxim straightened themselves back out. The old man stood in front of the gallows and contemplated Dimo and his brothers for several minutes before walking off with several other townspeople, discussing odds.

The next several hours were mostly uneventful. No one else tried to kill them or even get too close except for a group of children who started throwing rocks at Dimo, trying to knock his hat off. Their throws were weak and their aim worse, and since they were out of reach he was planning on ignoring them; but then one of them got a lucky shot and squarely struck his nose. This set Maxim and Oggie off laughing, which the kids took as encouragement, so Dimo growled and bared his teeth until their mothers panicked and dragged them off to bed. Eventually, morning came.

By sunrise, most of the crowd had dispersed. Dimo needed badly to piss and had screwed his eyes up against a ray of light that seemed to get under the brim of his hat no matter how he tilted his head. They’d been marching hard for days just to get to this town, and he was easily tired enough to sleep in the noose. Unfortunately, his brothers took the thinning crowd as an opportunity to talk.

“Vhy do hyu gets to keep hyu hat vhen ve lost hours? Is chust not fair!”

“Yah! Dis vos _hyu_ fault, ennyvay!”

Dimo took the bait. “ _How_ vas dis mine fault? De drinkink vasn’t _mine_ hydea, und _Hy_ vasn’t de vun vot vanted to play dis _schtupid_ game! Und hyu hats izn’t _lost,_ dey’s _right dere_!”

“Dey’s lost until ve’s vearink dem again,” Maxim said. “Und _hyu_ vas de vun in charge! Hyu should have schtopped us!”

“Now ve’s gonna die becawz of _hyu_!” Oggie remarked, rather too cheerful to mean it.

“Ve’s not gunna _die_ ,” Dimo snapped. (Well, not unless the mayor got bored of his betting pool, anyway.) “Ve’ll find a vay out.” He grasped around for something reassuring to say. “…zomehow.”

“Or Jenka vill come lookink for us!” Oggie added. A moment later he seemed to realize what he had just said and assumed a more appropriate expression for the occasion. For a minute the three of them dangled in an uncomfortable silence, then Maxim summed it up:

“She’s gunna _keel_ us, hyu know.”

And that was when the hangover kicked in.

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to my uncle for his writing advice!
> 
> If you liked this work, I recommend you check out [Para's](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Para/pseuds/Para) excellent followup fic, [Early Arrival](http://archiveofourown.org/works/5072329/chapters/13409272)!


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